Hard to believe it was over a month ago that I attended the cocktail party for the 2008 Lumen Awards at Chelsea Piers in NYC. The Lumens are the annual awards given by The Illuminating Engineering Society, New York City Section, to honor outstanding architectural lighting projects. The party is quite festive, overlooking the Hudson River, and the cocktails are followed by a gala dinner and After Glow party, which was lit by Marsha Stern this year, with a rig that included a Hippotizer media server, so it was nice running into Marsha, and "Chippa" and Scott Vontobel from TMB, as well as old friends from the architectural lighting arena such as Paul Gregory, Christen Methot, Sepp Spenlinhauer, etc....oddly the press was only invited to the cocktail party so I didn't actually get to see the awards presented, but they went to a wide variety of projects, with a full list available at www.iesny.org/Lumen.aspx.
I was pleased to see that Paul Gregory was honored for the Times Square Ball, winning a Citation for Increasing Public Awareness of LED's for the new ball that drops on New Year's Eve. As the press release stated: Referencing their theatrical experience, designers Paul Gregory, Christine Hope and Bret Anderson knew that the ball's triangular crystals had to sparkle as much when viewed from 500' away as they did 10' away.
The Times Square Ball was covered in the November issue of Live Design (http://livedesignonline.com/stagingrental/fly_ball/index.html)
Nice that a performing arts facilty was in the winner's circle as well: the beautifully designed Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, in Orange County, CA, where once again LEDs played an important role in meeting energy codes. The architectural lighting design is by Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design, New York, N.Y.
Also honored was the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center, New York, N.Y. with its cool white lighting designed by Tillotson Design Associates, New York, N.Y.
Congrats to all the winners!